Older Blue Sky Technical NewsThere's a new updater available, to Textures version 1.8.4. It will patch any CD copy of Textures 1.8, or any copy updated to 1.8.3 with that updater.
Like most major Macintosh applications, Textures suffers from the Mercutio bug (if you are unaware of the Mercutio bug, see Ric Ford's Macintouch Special Report regarding the development of this issue). If you feel that Textures is a significant factor in any system instability that you are experiencing, there is a System Patch that can be downloaded from our FTP server. Future releases of Textures will rely on Mercutio 1.5.
Adobe has released an Illustrator 7.0 to 7.0.1 Update which fixes some of the problems with Illustrator 7. It still doesn't appear to work properly with the Computer Modern fonts, but it does a much better job that before.
We now have Art Ogawa's build of LaTeX R7P0 on our FTP server. It is fat binary, so it can be used with both PPC and 68K Textures. The README file inside of the archive describes the installation process. If you would like to use the Lucida Bright, Lucida New Math, and Lucida Expert fonts with this version of LaTeX, remove your existing Lucida metrics from your TeX Fonts folder and try using the new version of the psfont/bh metrics instead (bh is short for Bigelow & Holmes, the designers of the Lucida Bright fonts). The fonts are then invoked using the lucidabr package. We haven't had a chance to test this build of LaTeX much, so please let us know if you experience any complications using it.
I just got a tip that MacOS 8.0J fixes a printing bug in previous versions of the Japanese MacOS like 7.5.5J and 7.6J. (Thanks to Junsei)
There is an updater available now that should update any 1.8 version of Textures to version 1.8.3. 1.8.3 has a few bug fixes in it, such as a fix for the marks menu. You will need to get an activation key to use the updated version of Textures if you do not already have one, so please read the Updater Page carefully before running it.
There are now two versions of the psfonts/adobe metrics available on our FTP server: the basic psfonts/adobe metrics and the full psfonts/adobe metrics. The basic psfonts/adobe metrics are about 1.2 MB and contain the metrics for the standard Mac fonts (Times, Palatino, Helvetica, etc.). The full psfonts/adobe metrics contains the same metrics as the basic psfonts/adobe metrics as well as the metrics for Optima, Utopia, Bembo, and a number of other fonts. This set is about 3 MB, so it slows down the time it takes to start up Textures considerably.
We believe we have fixed the Mathtime troubles that plagued LaTeX R6P0. It is a two part fix: first, download new adobe metrics. These metrics need to replace the existing version of the psfonts/adobe metrics that were installed by the CD-ROM in your TeX Fonts folder. Then you can download three font definition files that should replace the existing .fd files with the same name that are in your *LaTeX folder. The existing versions of these files tells LaTeX that when you use the mathtime package you would like to use the Mathtime Plus font set, which includes bold Mathtime characters. If you only have the basic Mathtime font set (which is all that we presently distribute), you need to let LaTeX know that you do not wish to use the Mathtime Plus font set. These three .fd files will do so.
The Lucida Bright problem is still unresolved, but we are talking to Y & Y so a solution should be available shortly.
We've discovered a bug in the Textures Reader that prevents users from printing properly. We have a new version of the Reader on our FTP Server. We will try to get an updater for existing Readers on our FTP server in the next few days.
If you use Mathematica and Textures: The initial shipping version of Mathematica 3.0 for the Macintosh front end does not export valid EPS files. The bounding box is incorrect, so that when the EPS is rendered, nothing is visible. There is a free patch for this problem. You might want to look at the FAQ at Wolfram's website: http://www.wolfram.com/support/Graphics/Formats/EPS/FrontEndFix.html which provides instructions for getting and installing the patch.
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